I’ve written a piece on painter Raychael Stine in this week’s issue of New City.Â I’ve been interested in Stine’s work ever since she was included in Columbia College’s Object of Nostalgia exhibition last year. She has a nice selection of paintings up in the lobby gallery at the McAninch Arts Center, College of DuPage through December. Here’s the intro to the piece; just click on over to New City to read the full profile:

“Thereâ€™s a lot of excess baggage that comes with being a young female painter who makes paintings of her dogs. Just ask Raychael Stine. A 2010 graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicagoâ€™s MFA program, Stine is sometimes asked if she does commissionsâ€”â€œI have a Chihuahua too! Can you paint him?â€ When she was an undergrad at UT Dallas, Stine was referred to as â€œThe girl who paints her dogs.â€ Even more vexing is the persistent assumption that Stineâ€™s representational approach to painting is something she has yet to â€œoutgrow,â€ as if it were not, in fact, a tactic she has consciously chosen for its ability to encapsulate emotionally inchoate and often covertly personal subjects within forms that have themselves been cast off as degraded, subservient, less-than.”

Raychael Stine. "Food For the Moon," 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas

Can I also just add that the exhibitions Barbara Wiesen has been organizing at the McAninch Arts Center have been rocking my world as of late? What I especially admire and appreciate about Ms. Wiesen’s programming of the Gahlberg Gallery space is the consistent attention she is paying to Chicago’s mid-career artists. The College of DuPage, which is located in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, can be a bit of a hike to get to – but the exhibitions here are never less than totally worth the effort, and as a perk parking is free and easy-peasy.